Stay
by Jules Kelly
Summary: On a cold winter night, Misao worries that her worst fear is about to come true. OneShot. AM Goodness!


He was leaving.

Again.

She secretly watched him from around the corner of a small wooden shed at the edge of the forest. The night air had a bitter bite to it, and she shivered uncontrollably due to her ill-chosen garments. She had dressed hastily after sensing movement in the hallway. Movement outside of her door.

How long he stood there was unknown to her. She laid in her bed, frozen, and tried to keep her breathing even. Still, her heart quivered uncontrollably in her chest, and her stomach felt as though five-thousand butterflies had been ceremoniously released inside of her.

How long he stood there, she could not remember. Long enough to make her think that his inactions were going to kill her. Would they find her dead in the morning? Just a frozen shell of a small, heartbroken girl?

He silently moved from her door. She didn't hear his feet on the floor, but she sensed that he was no longer there. Empty air hung in her room, and she gasped for a breath. Her entire body was covered in a cold sweat, and her light sleeping gown stuck to her trembling body. Peeling the clothing off slowly, she changed into her usual ninja outfit before quietly sliding back her door and exiting into the hallway.

She could tell that he had been there. His presence still remained in the air. She could feel it, somehow. It was indescribable, but she knew that it had been no dream.

She followed an imaginary trail down the hallway and finally found herself outside in the night air. Her hair was damp from her nervous perspiration, and she pulled tightly on the blue ribbon that held the stiff braid together. Waves of pure black tresses were at once released and pooled down her back and over her shoulders like a luscious waterfall. Her cheeks were flushed, and her skin was a sickly pale as though death was about to pass its shadow over her.

Mustering all of her strength, she ran for what felt like an eternity across the frost covered grass till her lungs tightened in her chest and her abdomen throbbed with an indescribably intense pain. Steadying herself against a tiny shed, she engulfed huge amounts of air to try to regain her strength. Her tiny legs wobbled, and she fell to her knees, defeated.

Where had he gone?

Her mind tried to search for him, but she felt nothing. Just a cold, empty pain that ran throughout her whole body. She coughed sharply. Her entire body seemed to convulse.

He was leaving her.

She knew it. Deep in her heart, she had always known that he would one day leave her again. It had been four years since he had returned, and she had started to think that maybe this time he would stay.

Had she been selfish for wanting him to stay?

He obviously wasn't very happy in his current life. Every day he went to the temple to meditate. She brought him tea, and they sat together in silence. It was their daily routine. The routine that she had become used to and was content to let it stay that way. At least he was home, and she didn't have to worry about where he was.

How many nights had she spent wondering if he was alive or dead when he had gone away on his previous missions? Too many.

She had known this pain since she was just a little girl. She had counted down the days, the months, and the years between his missions. An emptiness inhabited her tiny heart then, and it was tearing her apart now.

A slow numbness crept into her bones, and she found herself unable to support her weak body with her even weaker arms. With a soft thud, she fell onto the frozen grass beneath her and laid immobile.

"Don't fail me now," she tried to instruct her body with a weak whisper. "I can't let him leave me again. I have to follow him."

She would follow him to the ends of the world. To hell, even, if it called for that. She would go anywhere for him even if he himself told her not to follow. There was a connection between the two of them, and she knew that there was no way she could ever break it. If he was worlds apart from her, she would still remain attached to him.

Their eternal, unbreakable bond. She didn't fully understand it and didn't need to. All she knew was what she was feeling right now.

Mustering what little strength she had left, she rolled over onto to her back and stared up at the wide expanse of stars. Her eyelids fluttered as she teetered between reality and a dreamlike state. A huge amount of thick hair was strewn around her petite frame, and the fingers of her right hand weakly tugged at a stubborn tangle.

"Stay," she whispered, the words barely audible. "Stay for me."

And then she sensed him right by her side as though he had never left. Barely able to open her eyes, she could only make out the icy radiance of his blue eyes glowing like a demon's in the night. Reaching up her hand, she grasped the end of his beige trench coat as though that would prevent him from leaving her.

"Aoshi-sama. Don't leave me again."

"I'm not leaving, Misao." His voice was deep, cold, and unflinching.

"You're not?"

"No." He looked down at her body sprawled out on the ground and wondered at her physical state of being. "You're sick, Misao. You need to see a doctor."

"Just tell me that you'll never leave me," she pleaded, lightly tugging on his coat.

He bent down and scooped Misao up in his arms in one swift motion. Even though her body still felt as light as it did when she was a child, Aoshi sensed a new heaviness in her that stemmed from her heart. There were no doubts in his mind that this weight was caused solely by him. She burrowed her head into his chest, and her intense coldness flooded from her body to his.

"Tell me that you'll never leave me," she begged, grasping the front of his shirt in an attempt to pull herself closer to him.

Carrying her all the way back to her lonely room, he carefully placed her back in her bed. While he thought it might have been a good idea to change her clothes, he could not bring himself to undress the beautiful girl. Moonlight poured in through her window and bathed Misao in a silver light, making her look more angelic than she normally did in pure daylight. His hand slowly traced the delicate curve from her forehead to the point of her chin.

"Misao," he mournfully sighed. "Why do you torture yourself?"

Pulling himself away from her painful gaze, he stood up from her bed and walked towards her door. Trying not to look back at Misao, Aoshi slid open the door and was about to leave before he heard her voice.

"Please," Misao whispered. "Tell me that you won't leave me."

Aoshi paused. His hand had a strong grip on the door frame that increased as Misao's plea continued to echo in his brain.

"I will stay," Aoshi said. "For you."

He left the room and quickly closed the door behind him. Her pain partially subsided, and he could fell the weight lifted from her heart. He walked the short distance back to his own room, and stood at his window looking out on the cold world. There would be no sleep for him tonight.

_Leave._

It was a single word that had been plaguing him since he had returned. A moral duty was what he had eventually justified it as. Why should he stay when he was just bringing everyone pain? He had nothing more to offer.

_Misao._

He knew that if he left, however, she would die. Even though he feared his presence tainted her every day that she was near him, he knew that if he left forever, she would slowly wither into nothing. And what would happen to him? Without her, there was no chance of redemption and no chance of eternal peace. He would slowly revert into the demon that he had once been.

So, he would stay for her.

* * *

**A/N:** Wow, my first Aoshi and Misao story ever! Exciting! Well, at least for me... 


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